7 PM | Issues with EVM | 22 January, 2019

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Context:

Recently at a press conference in London, a United States-based “cyber expert” claimed that the 2014 General Elections in India were rigged and this has raised concerns over the legitimacy of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in conducting free and fair elections.

Why is it important to ensure free and fair elections?

Free and fair elections in democracy have three cornerstones transparency, verifiability, and secrecy

1. Democracy and Human Right:Free and fair elections to choose political representatives are a cornerstone of a democracy, and a fundamental human right of people
2. Public trust:Impartial electoral process is important to maintain public trust in democratic institutions.
3. Transfer of political power and Political Competitiveness: Free and fair elections are important to ensure effective transfer of political power and political competitiveness and prevent political elite from capturing democratic process
4. Policy making: Voters’ preferences are converted into a political mandate, which forms the basis for policy making
5. Public goods and Services: An unfair and partial election affects the provision of public goods. With electoral fraud, there are no checks on politicians to stop them from spending disproportionately on private goods, at the expense of public goods.
6. Security to Citizens: Free and fair elections are important to ensure security to citizens. In case of election fraud politicians fail to provide security to ordinary people because they depend on criminal elements in the electoral process

Concerns with EVMs

1. EVMs and Transparency/Verifiability:

• With EVMs, the voters cannot see if the vote has been recorded, nor can it be verified later whether the vote was recorded correctly. Only the total number of votes cast is recorded.
• To ensure transparency and verifiability, the VVPAT has been introduced to EVMs. However, critics argue that it only solves half of the concerns over transparency. Even with VVPATs as it does not address counting errors.

EVM bans globally:
• In 2006, the Netherlands banned the use of EVMs.
• In 2009, the Republic of Ireland declared a moratorium on their use.
• In 2009, the Supreme Court of Germany ruled that voting through EVMs was unconstitutional, holding that transparency is a constitutional right but efficiency is not a constitutionally protected value.

2. EVMs and Secrecy: Votes in EVMs are counted booth-wise. This allows one to discern voting patterns and renders marginalised communities vulnerable to pressure.
3. EVMs are not tamperproof: Experts have alleged that EVMs can be hacked and tampered remotely to influence the outcome of elections.
4. Physical Security: Critics argue that India’s EVMs relies entirely on the physical security ofthe machines and the integrity of election insiders.This seems to negate many of the security benefits ofusing electronic voting in the first place.
5. EVMs and technological glitches: Malfunctions and technological glitches in EVMs and VVPAT machines have been areas of concerns since the introduction of the machines in Indian elections.

Response on the concerns raised over EVMs:

Response of Election Commission (EC)

The official stand of the Election Commission has always beenthat EVMs are 100% reliable and tamperproof. The arguments put forward are:

• EVMs are standalone machines, meaning, they are not connected either by wire or wireless network to any other machine or system. Hence they can’t be influenced by signals from outside
• The EVMs have software put on one time programmable chip and can’t be altered or tampered because the source code is not made available to the outsider.
• Election Commission of India has “Standard of Procedure” which is strictly adhered to by all officers of EC.

Supreme Court’s Views on EVMs

1. Recently, the Supreme Court dismissed a plea seeking the use of ballot papers instead of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and advocated that cannot direct the government or Election Commission to introduce a particular system based on mere doubts raised over EVMs
2. In 2013, SC had directed Election Commission to introduce in a phased manner the VVPAT in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) stating that it is an indispensable requirement of free, fair and transparent elections which will restore confidence of the voters.

Conclusion:

A transparent voting system – free and fair election is the cornerstone of democracy and it is of utmost necessary to address the concerns over the use of EVMs in Indian Elections. Deploying an election process using EVMs based on Blockchain technology and Aadhaar verification can ensure transparency, immutability and voter’s confidence.

Static:

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/why-evms-must-go/article26053761.ece